kingfox

Skipp has turned into the English N’golo Kante

Looking forward to the inevitable Kieffer Moore hat-trick tonight.

I can remember posting on here a few months back that certain stats like pressing, were starting to very much correlate with his QPR side. I thoroughly agree with the comments regarding the mid block and the defensive pressure our full-backs are under. But I think there’s two elements of our defending that we’re shit at, not defending well in a mid block, and not defending well when transitions happen. Take Karlan Grant’s goal against WBA for example. Evidently we got our press wrong, but in the end it lead to them exploiting a massive space which led to him scoring… All that space to exploit is fvcking embarrassing. But so many times this season we see moments like this, where we get caught on transition, a massive space like that then gets exploited, which leads to an opposition chance, or even worse, a goal. It happens game after game, and Cifuentes has done fvck all to address why we look so vulnerable defensively. If we lose to Wrexham tonight, you just know their goals will either come from a cross where our full-backs become exposed, or off a transition where a massive space in midfield is exploited.

Something must have changed in his mind after that Fiorentina game. After seeing that, I was rubbing my hands in anticipation to see it adopted in the league, yet it disappeared and we haven’t really seen an aggressive press since. Does he feel we don’t have the right personnel to play it, Ayew leading the line for example, and earlier in the season Winks and Soumare were prominent figures. What concerns me the most though is how vulnerable we look on transitions. When you’re asking Jordan James to push forward like a 8/10, once you turn the ball over, a massive space is then vacated. We’ve seen in recent games Bobby Reid dropping into this space to give Oli Skipp a bit of support. On transition, we leave far too much space for the opposition to exploit, leaving Oli Skipp to try and defend situations by himself, as much as he’s improved, it’s glaringly obvious he needs better help in there. You’re just leaving too much space to exploit vulnerable defenders who don’t enjoy defending like Luke Thomas. It’s no wonder we give up so many chances, and have one of the worst xGC numbers in the league.

I’ve said it all season, but I still think it boils down to a mixture of personnel and style of play. From a personnel perspective, there’s obvious glaring holes that need rectifying in this team, and as crazy as it may sound, it’s why I find it difficult to fully judge Marti Cifuentes. There’s a massive question mark hanging over him and this team, would a proper goalscoring number 9 make this Marti Cifuentes team look much much better? I’m actually curious to see if he could potentially make it work, if the struggles still continue then surely it’s goodbye for him. Of course in Maresca’s season, we had the greatest of all time manage 18 league goals for us. Of course we don’t have that luxury anymore, it’s thankful that Jordan James is seemingly filling the void that KDH left behind. If you want to get promoted however; you need that little bit more. That’s where Cifuentes needs to be getting more out of Mavididi and Fatawu, ideally those two need to be hitting double figures this season, unfortunately Mavididi is of course nowhere near that right now. As for the certain stats out of possession, I have no idea what QPR’s running stats looked under Cifuentes, but in terms of PPDA for example, at one point last season they ranked 23rd in the Championship. His teams don’t press aggressively which is a massive shame, because we showed we could do it in that Fiorentina friendly game, since then for whatever reason, those tactics have been ditched. I’ve said it numerous times before as well, I still believe our build up play is often too slow. You look at Opta’s stats in terms of build ups, 10+ passes, sequence time, direct speed, and some of the teams that sit around us in those statistics. For direct speed, we are the joint 5th slowest team in the league alongside Norwich. West Brom, Middlesbrough, Swansea, Southampton and Sheff Wed are slower than us. Majority of those teams have all experienced problems this season, only team not to of course have been Middlesbrough, but a big reason why they’re doing so well, is by having one of the best defences in the Championship. The amount of problems we have, you didn’t even mention our woes defensively which are even worse than our attacking woes. It’s infuriating how Marti Cifuentes sets us up from a defensive perspective, yet week in, week out, he changes fvck all. I think I’ll stop there Finners, before this turns into a full blown rant.

Birmingham and Norwich making moves for two of the most prolific strikers in Scandinavia, while we continue to twiddle our thumbs

Been a while since I did a statistical update, just ignore if you hate xG… xG - 30.19(17th in the Championship) Pressed Sequences - 270(16th in the Championship) PPDA - 13.1(14th in the Championship) High Turnovers - 160(14th in the Championship) And the most depressing of the lot… Goals Conceded - 40(2nd most in the Championship) xGC - 39.50(4th worst in the Championship) In terms of our attacking data, thank god for Jordan James and the numerous worldies that we’ve scored. Pressing stats continue to be mediocre, slight improvement from the first few months of the season. While our defensive data continues to be some of the worst in the league, has been like that since I started delving into Opta’s stats in October. Put that altogether with our lack of clean sheets, plus the non existent full 90 minute performances, how long left do we give him? Maybe give him the transfer window and see what happens over those Oxford and Charlton games. If we make signings and he still can’t get a tune and improve our defence, then surely it’s goodbye for him in February.

As Ric said with the quoted fee, unfortunately probably slightly out of our range. Bit sad when we can’t even compete with Birmingham, and have to operate more like Oxford United If Diabate joins though, will be intriguing to see who does better out of him and Priske.

Kyren deserves a Masters title, but that overall was an underwhelming scrappy watch.

Gerrimin!

Different leagues and all that, but just for a laugh…

It’s the fact that we’ll probably need two strikers next season, if we have the ability to sign someone now in the £2-4 million price bracket, then it’s a wise gamble to make. Numerous clubs in the Championship in the past few seasons, have had success with strikers in the £4 million range or below. Or you wait until the summer, and look at the free agent and loan market. After looking at the potential free agent list for the summer, it isn’t the most exciting list to be working from. If we have the ability to sign a striker for £2-4 million now, then we should bloody do it. Then hopefully we have the ability to do the same again in the summer. QPR managed to sign both Kone and Burrell in that range, it can be done.

Just have to look at what Jovon Makama and Rumarn Burrell are doing this season, there’s risks worth taking at League 1 level.

No idea how Higgins keeps doing it, probably the best competitor the game has ever seen.

His main statistical chart + his best stats. A goalscorer with aerial ability….

Just came in to post similar, numerous intriguing strikers at League 1 level, but I think that’s his second hat-trick of the season today.

A striker from a Scandinavian league, but it’s not August Priske

Weak finishing, followed by the usual weak defenders have let us down today.

Here he is, the duracell bunny, Bouba Soumare.

Just hope we don’t regret not making the most out of our cut-backs, that particular play has been on numerous times, poor finishing or having no one on the edge of the 18 yard box, has cost us for potentially being 3-0, 4-0 up.

Holy shit, Marti has finally turned us into Barcelona

One of our best goals of the season in terms of ball movement 👏🏻

Looking forward to Soumare coming off the bench to add some energy in the second half.

Very easy to get attracted to natural ability, and in all my years watching Snooker, he is one of the most naturally gifted players I’ve ever seen. Just a very fun player to watch when he’s on his game, which will begin to appeal to more British fans when he becomes even more prominent.

Can see British fans becoming very attracted to Wu Yize in the years to come, such a captivating player to watch.